Thread by @Iron_Spike

Oh, god. I'm gonna talk about this one, too.

This is a depiction of a kabuki actor, dressed to play a female part in an ancient drama originally performed in the classier, more-acceptable noh theater.

Kabuki was INCREDIBLY popular. Dangerously so, in the government's opinion.

https://twitter.com/JapanTraCul/status/1416933558061572098

Kabuki was originally started by all-women touring groups, and the stan culture surrounding them was frantic. The fact a lot of these women were also sex workers on the side, & that fans paupered themselves paying for sex, was what got female actors literally banned in the 1620s.

With women banned from the stage, their parts in kabuki were then played by... wakashu. Who I tweeted about earlier.

Who were already considered the embodiment of INCALCULABLY HUGE sex appeal by EVERYONE, at the time.

WOW, who could have foresaw, THIS DID NOT FIX ANYTHING.

So, the government banned female CHARACTERS from kabuki. You just... could not have any in your play. Men and wakashu could only play men and wakashu.

Kabuki was limited to male/male onstage romances.

And the audience STILL loved it. STILL paid for sex w/actors. STILL obsessed.

And so, finally, after an attempt to ban wakashu from the stage that went over like a lead balloon, the government loosened restrictions, re-permitting wakashu and female characters... on the condition wakashu actors shave their forelocks.

The wakashu forelock was considered the sexiest thing about them by many admirers, and the government figured, well, without the forelocks? That raging lust would cool enough that the kabuki fandom would stop being a national-stability-threatening issue.

LOL.

Anyway, the inevitable happened, and instead of eroticizing the now-missing forelocks of kabuki wakashu, theater fans became obsessed with the tiny purple scarves the actors wore to hide the forelock-free fronts of their heads.

FURTHERMORE, since a shaved pate was a symbol of male maturity and the diametric opposite of the wakashu forelock, this began to encourage the practice and acceptance of then-frowned-upon male/male romance (wakashu weren't considered men, and only male/wakashu love was OK). Oops!

Sex work and kabuki was so intertwined (As in, ALL kabuki actors were considered sexually available in that way to fans, and most got their start as sex workers, full-stop) that non-kabuki male sex workers who weren't wakashu began wearing the scarf, too. It became *that sexy.*

More details here.

Art is the most fun when you understand what you're looking at.

( o_o)-b

And as a note, if you can't grasp why something like kabuki could be considered destabilizing by the government?

Imagine a world where, say, Scarlett Johansson would sleep with you... for 10 million a pop.

And imagine what some people might try to do to get 10 mil together.

BONUS: Found a vid where an onnagata (Kabuki actor who specializes in female roles) talks about this play.

Like Shakespeare/opera, Kabuki's gone from trash for the rabble to cultural treasure.

He does the dance depicted w/the towel about 2/3rds thru.

Fun fact: In his first in-costume scene, he enters the stage dressed as a woman who is a shirabyoshi, a classical Japanese female entertainer who... dresses as a man in their act. (The hat.)

LAYERS, y'all.